I was recently asked to provide coaching for a team of B2B sales people on an overseas assignment. My client enjoyed dominant market share and almost ubiquitous brand awareness. Staff and customer surveys both showed strong affection for the brand and satisfaction with the operational performance of the business. They had long standing and deep relationships with major B2B clients and were deeply engaged with the community.
So why were they losing market share hand over fist to new market entrants and smaller competitors?
I accompanied their key sales people on calls to major clients. In most cases, the clients affection for the account managers was obvious, the tone of the meetings was upbeat and inviting and the sales teams were energetic and productive. My client was at a loss. Most sales people spend their entire careers trying to develop relationships of this quality. Lucky for me, I had seen this problem many times before.
In my experience, there are five stages of B2B customer relationships. Depending on which stage of the relationship I am at, the customer views me as:
- Stage 1: The rep from Company X.
- Stage 2: Gary from Company X.
- Stage 3: Gary Radford from Company X.
- Stage 4: Gary Radford
- Stage 5: Maaaaaaate! Or some expletive that acts as an ironic term of endearment.
Obviously, reaching stage 4 and 5 comes with a host of advantages. What most people don’t realise is that it also presents it’s own set of risks.
Stage 4 and 5 B2B relationships include an inherent informality. Meetings are relaxed and jovial. Pleasantries are exchanged, there is a chat about family and career and the obligatory lamenting or celebration of the clients favourite sporting team. Hands are shaken and a time is agreed to catch up again next month. You’re a proven performer to the client, so they generally spend little time on detail.
At best, anecdotes from the clients team about positive or negative interactions with your organisation have filtered their way through and are brushed over. Often, the relationship has become so informal and intimate that the Account Manager would literally feel awkward in introducing any formality in the discussions. Your Stage 5 account has become a victim of it’s own success and you generally only get any actionable feedback if something has gone horribly wrong.
So what is actually being missed? In my experience, usually a whole lot. Maintaining some level of formality, even in Stage 5 B2B relationships is a crucial element in retaining and growing an account. The most effective way of achieving this is to develop a “single organising idea,” to act as a template for a formal account review.
From a customers perspective, a suppliers business is made up of three distinct parts. The Strategic Platform (what type of business are you?), The Engine (the customer experience), and The Offer (effectively the price of your product or service). The Strategic Platform, The Engine and The Offer can be broken into measurable KPI’s that represent the ideal template for formal account review.
Below is a Single Organising Idea, using a machinery business as an example:
The above essentially represents the decision making process that a customer goes through in order to select a supplier in this space. It is an ideal tool to use when building a formal account review process and avoiding the unseen risks in Stage 4 and Stage 5 B2B account relationships.
Each category above can be broken out into a series of questions that enables the Account Manager to get an in-depth view of the customers opinion. The Geography category is obviously used to ask if the supplier has adequate geographic coverage to satisfy the clients needs. The Operations category would include questions such as, when your team calls our office do we answer quickly? Do we know what we are talking about? Do we respond to breakdowns and warranty calls in a timely manner?
The Value Proposition category can be used to reinforce any quantifiable offering you have, or as an opportunity to introduce a new service or product offering that may be of use to the client.
It came as no surprise to me that introducing this approach on my recent overseas assignment uncovered a wealth of unseen opportunity. Everything from recurring (easily fixable) service issues that were leading the clients line managers to use alternative suppliers, to product innovations that the clients had not been made aware of. There were even products in the suppliers range that some Stage 5 clients were sourcing elsewhere because the Account Manager had assumed the client was aware of the entire product range.
The client is now in the process of introducing this formal review process at all levels of the organisation. A National Account Review will soon include presenting the client with an aggregated view of how all levels of their own organisation view the supplier in each category of the single organising idea.
In my experience, falling into the trap of informality when dealing with B2B clients with whom you have a strong personal relationship is the rule rather than the exception. People are understandably immersed in their own businesses and forget that what they do only makes up a small part of their customers day. Taking the time to formally remind clients of why they use your products and services, asking how you could improve and introducing new solutions is the best way to add tangible value to clients that already see value in your personal relationship.
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